Meetings

At the March Membership meeting, we heard from Shahid Buttar, director of grassroots advocacy for the Electronic Freedom Frontier (EFF). Shahid gave interesting insights as to what is current and coming up on the horizon from the new presidential administration under Donald Trump. He gave an overview of the new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and what we could expect from his tenure, including the repeal of Net Neutrality and online privacy. Shahid gave some simple suggestions to help us all be safe online and fielded many questions.

Panhandle Playground: Anne Baskerville from Rec and Park provided an update on the Panhandle Playground renovation plans and the pathways project. There is a delay on pathway repair due to uneven surfaces along the northern path. The playground project is set to have its first public meeting in March, and Anne will check back with us when scheduling has been finalized.

Proposed Bike Lanes on Fell and Oak: Ellen Robinson, a traffic engineer with MTA, reviewed the proposals to date. She assured us that having a proposal prepared does not mean that MTA was committed to the project, but short of a couple of significant routing issues, work would be moving forward on the lanes. Members were startled to learn of a new concept described in the feasibility report as a “high speed bike commuter lane,” especially because these lanes would encounter pedestrian cross-traffic every block along the way.

July’s HANC meeting focused on the latest “market based solution” being proposed in Sacramento to address the City's and the State’s “housing crisis”: Gov. Brown’s “by right” proposal and AB2801, a mandatory “density bonus” program that will allow up to a 35% bonus in the size of all housing developments proposed at the local level.

The Tenants Union’s executive director Deepa Varma joined HANC’s Housing and Land use Board member Calvin Welch in discussing the impacts of these proposals on San Francisco. In a word, the impacts would mean “displacement” of existing residents and small businesses. In a any area like San Francisco with virtually no open space and a red hot real estate market, mandatory density bonuses and the development of housing without a public hearing process (that is developing “by right” , not local approval) would most likely mean that existing buildings would be demolished in order to make way for more dense buildings allowed by the new policies.

Turnout for the September HANC meeting was good. The meeting started with Tim Redmond (48hills.org), discussing Propositions G, Q, R, D, H, M, & L. In summary, vote NO on G, Q, & R, they were placed on the ballot by Weiner and Farrel, designed to be policy pushing wedge issues that are thin on solutions and thick on politics.

Tim continued with why you should vote YES on Propositions D, H, M, & L. Prop D will separate unilateral power from the Executive Branch and prevent the Mayor from appointing replacement Supervisors if one should leave. Prop H would create the new position of Public Advocate; this position exists in many other cities. Prop M would create a commission to oversee Housing, and Workforce and Economic Development. Prop L would create split appointment of the MTA board between the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors. As a group all of these propositions take power back from the Mayor.

The focus of HANC’s June 2016 meeting was an examination of what real change in transportation might look like for the Haight Ashbury and for our city more broadly. HANC’s guide for this exploration was Jason Henderson, a professor of geography at San Francisco State University.

Our journey started at the global level. As other countries plan for prosperity and mobility we cannot afford the environmental cost of them emulating the US love affair with the automobile. The US has 0.786 vehicles per person, more than 10 times the rate in China, which is already experiencing gridlock and alarming pollution. Both the US and developing countries need transportation solutions beyond the personal automobile.